24 Hours - Saddle Up for St Jude

Over the weekend, my barn hosted a 24 hour ride-a-thon for St Jude Children's Research Hospital!

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.  -Mae West

(Have I mention that I love my daily calendar's inspiration?)

 

I didn't make it the whole 24 hours...  But, there were still adventures!

I rode a total of 17 hours.  I totalled 14 of those hours on the Fancy Pony!  She stepped up to the plate and never complained.  She even happily drank water with her bridle on!

We entered a costume contest.  I wore a big fancy renaissance-inspired dress with dagged sleeves and draped the mini-train over Pony's butt...  She never even noticed!  We even jumped like that!!  Maybe I should start calling her "honey badger"?
My team mate wore her rennaissance inspired garb with a long cape draped over her Arabian's butt...  That mare didn't care either.  When we WON best team costume, we took our victory lap side by side and jumped a little jump together, in tandem, still side by side...  Somewhere there are pictures, and I WILL share them when I find them!!

Another game we had fun playing was called "Turtle Hurdle".  There were 3 cross-rails, a bridge, then 3 more cross-rails.  We were timed.  We placed 4th because Fancy Pony was convinced that the bridge was a jump and couldn't figure out how to put her feet on it...  It was really funny watching her try to figure it out, though!

During the magazine race, I gathered my dress into my lap before racing down, hopping off, grapping my page, and hopping back on...  I dropped the dress as I sent Pony back 'home', and as the dress fell around her while we were cantering... She bucked!  It was coming to get her!
...Oops...  Guess I should have warned her...

Then there was an Egg and Spoon game!  We walked around and I tried to find my soft joints...  We trotted in half-seat, and I meditated...  We cantered, and I was amazed at how smoothly Fancy Pony made the transition and how collected she cantered...  Then, they announced, "We have a winner!"



What do you mean??

I thought, "No, we don't...  I still have my egg!!"

And when I looked over my shoulder, the rest of the field was standing in the middle....  We WON!  Oh, Pony, you are the coolest of ponies!  How did you know how to pull that off??

After the games were over, I went back to play on the bridge.  It took many minutes of centering Fancy Pony in front of the bridge and sitting quietly while she pondered it...  Finally, she shuffled close enough to bump her legs on the edge...  Then, she stepped on!
Oh, how I praised her!  We stood half on the bridge while I made such a fuss over her, and she took a breath and committed to hanging out there all day!  We walked off the bridge and reapproached.  She took it like she's been doing it forever!!  We got so good, we could walk half-way on, pivot the haunches around the corner, side pass to the other end, pivot the haunched around the other corner, then walk across it!!  WOW!  This pony...

Could she get any cooler??